"...I just want you to know that even in that tough period, you're going to have grand adventures. You're going to meet fascinating people. You're going to find new forever friends, and you're going to figure out which of your current friends are the forever kind..."
Not a bad summation of what we add and subtract over the years, the trouble we get into, the people that link arms with us for an age or a season. But I think that's the hardest advice to articulate, how to dig into people. Friends are such a tenuous but vital part of the world we build for ourselves. It's easy to assume certain friends are part of a lifelong picture, and just as easy to take that for granted. It's easy to put up with hurt long enough for it to feel normal, and fail to see the crumbling of the railroad track until the train derails. But even the friends I've lost (by distance, by choice, by death, by silence, by chapters opened and closed) serve as some foundation for my faith in humans as a whole. The way our hearts connect to strangers, the way we intertwine our lives with people who never knew we existed prior to that first meeting, that is the stuff of heaven.
"...You're going to have to ask Mom and Dad for money. And you're going to sob when you ask. You're going to resent them as a safety net and you're going to be immensely, eternally grateful. Your brother and sister are going to buy you dinners and groceries and send you money every once in awhile, and it's going to happen right when you need it. It's going to be one of the many moments where you feel God taking care of you..."
I wasn't a particularly interested Christian for the majority of my 20s. I played the part well when I came home for holidays but God was a nuisance or a disappointment more often than a comfort. Peace Corps, Hurricane Katrina, loss of friends and poor romantic choices, while I can look back now and recognize the protections and gentleness God provided in those painful seasons, at the time I saw God as inattentive, uncaring, and not worth my time or reflection. But there were moments I could not ignore Him. And those moments were when I felt His love pour out through the hands of my family and friends. It still happens and it will always happen, because I firmly believe people are God's greatest tool for proving His existence. C.S. Lewis said it well, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one." Recognizing ourselves in each other is a magical thing, and so often that recognition reminds me that God created us in His image. When we move the darkness aside, we see Him looking back at us in the eyes of friends.
"...I don't have a lot of advice other than this: "Let love and faithfulness never leave you, write them on the tablet of your heart." Proverbs 3:3. When you're in a mess, when you're desperate, when you're sad or hopeful, center yourself on the life God gave you...Commit to being faithful in your relationships with friends, boyfriends, family, and complete strangers...."
I first fell in love with that verse in my early 20s. It was written on a sachet of potpourri in a friend's bathroom (weird what sticks out to you over time). I don't remember which friend, I only remember that the writer in me loved that image. I pictured my heart as a stone, strong, heavy, but soft enough for the scratching of truths. Etching "love" and "faithfulness" seemed powerful, like those two things alone could provide all the direction one needed for a life of purpose, happiness. I've failed at both many, many times. I've damaged friendships, slung arrows with my tongue, been defensive instead of receptive, and I've cheated myself of connections every time. Committing to the connection, to the bond between us, when our instinct is to respond to surface hurts and insecurities, is very difficult. It's a skill acquired only through practice. That's why the etching into stone is key. It's a slow digging in. We could so easily etch "self-preservation" or "fear" into our hearts. That would take less effort, both come so naturally. Reacting to the world, to the people around us, with love and faithfulness, requires muscle that can weaken without use.
My sister's graduation comes in the same season as my 35th birthday, what feels like the very beginning of the middle of my life. It has been a season, for me, of digging into new friendships, relaxing my grip on old wounds, and reflecting on what God has given me as opposed to what He has not. I won't say I have life figured out (laughable), but I have come to a place that recognizes love and gives love with greater gusto than I've thought possible in the past. And that ability only came about through the trial and error of attempting to love God with all my heart and my neighbor as God loves me. It's a commandment I've always thought of as so simple as to be functionally impossible. But the attempt is what makes the road worthwhile. At 23. 29 (you too, little brother). 35. Forever.
